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URBS-X3253 Food & Society in Global Cities

This guide supports the zine-making assignment in Noah Allison's Food & Society in Global Cities class at Barnard College, summer 2025. The guide was made by zine librarian Jenna Freedman.

Read and Discuss

photo of two cats sniffing at a zineZine sampler! Read/skim a zine for two minutes & repeat 3x. 

[Content: curse words, sexuality, nudity, trauma]

Discuss in a group, using these guiding questions, or your own

  • What does the zine say about its creator--directly or indirectly?
  • How is the zine different from a research paper, digital project, Instagram reel, etc.?

  • Thinking of the Piepmeier reading, how do the zine's appearance and content work with or against each other?

The Zine Spectrum

On the Zine Spectrum (by Lea Cooper, who has a PhD in zines)

screenshot of zine spectrum content from https://zinejam.com/blog-1/zines-101

 

  • self-published
  • handmade
  • visible authorship
  • DIY
  • counter-cultural
  • reproducible
  • visual-text-material
  • third space knowledges
  • (intentionally) limited distribution
  • self-identifies as a zine
  • not for profit
  • amateur

How are these factors present (or not) in other publishing media, e.g., Instagram, a textbook, Sidechat, the NY Times, the Free Beacon, Urban Studies journal